' "Hey this is Jen . . . um, and I used to . . . hey guys the bathroom . . . OK, I am looking for my boyfriend. . . . I did call 911 . . . I am at Billy Bob's . . . and I, uh, drank a lot of Absolut before I came and I am definitely not 21 but we're not so sure it matters because no one under 21 doesn't drink . . . whatever, it's college . . . "

This soused student's nonsensical message is one of the many ill communications filling the airwaves on any given night — a typically rambling example of the campus trend of drunk dialing.

Although no precise figure exists for the practice in this country, a recent Virgin Mobile survey in Australia found that of the 400-plus questioned, 95 percent had drunk dialed. (The company offers an intervention service, which allows certain numbers to be blocked until the next morning, though Virgin says there are no plans to offer this service in America.) And in 2005, according to new-media research company Telephia, Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 are the ones talking the most on cell phones, averaging almost 22 hours a month.

This gabby group includes the micro-generation currently in college, which is discovering that with modern technologies come new consequences. Marshall McLuhan observed that when people's sense ratios change, they themselves change. The ubiquitous cell phone not only provides ample opportunities to communicate, but has a way of altering one's actions as well. Armed with a Nokia in one hand and a PBR in the other, students are getting fluent in cellular slurring. '